QUOTES ABOUT HOPE

The Musket's Progeny by Stewart Stafford

The musket's progeny, gunpowder's rise,
Heirloom ingot cast in festering dirt,
No scaldy-faced defecator's lies,
Can tarnish gold's immutable worth.

Besmirched, perpetual gleam to my eyes,
Ne'er base, but plundered from thy berth,
Another's private treasure, I cannot despise,
Until thy loan fadeth i' th' afterbirth.

With cloistered secrets to impart,
Our correspondence doth expand,
Let it encompass thy tiny heart,
For when it groweth to understand.

When from distant quays, emotion sails,
My words guide thee in storms and gales.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.

THRICE bless'd are they, who feel their loneliness;
To whom nor voice of friends nor pleasant scene
Brings aught on which the sadden'd heart can
lean;
Yea, the rich earth, garb'd in her daintiest dress
Of light and joy, doth but the more oppress,
Claiming responsive smiles and rapture high;
Till, sick at heart, beyond the veil they fly,
Seeking His Presence, who alone can bless.
Such, in strange days, the weapons of Heaven's
grace;
When, passing o'er the high-born Hebrew line,
He moulds the vessel of His vast design;
Fatherless, homeless, reft of age and place,
Sever'd from earth, and careless of its wreck,
Born through long woe His rare Melchizedek.

Over the years, she had time and time again thought that love had a peak and a plateau, but she found that each time she only fell deeper and further in love with her husband. Measurements stopped, time slowed, but the soft fluttering of her heart whenever she thought of him never ceased.

Hope is a terribly dangerous thing, for what if that which we so passionately hope for never comes to pass? What if the healing never comes, the relationship is never restored, the dream can’t be revived, and the horror of the inevitable remains horribly inevitable? These things I pondered. And yet, standing in a forest forced silent by the bitter hand of winter I was reminded that spring is never deterred despite how bitter winter’s hand might be. For it is not the ‘hope’ of spring. Rather it is the ‘fact’ of spring. And therefore we must remember that hope is fact despite how bitter the hand of life.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

I wanna be myself (I don’t care)
Yeah, I gotta be myself (Just don’t care)
And now that your weight’s come off my shoulders
I realize that I can fly
I needed to find me (Now I know)
The key was inside of me all along
I’m listening to my heart, let it guide me
I feel the light, I feel the light

Let our love be a radiant sun,
casting warmth on all it touches..
Offer compassion like a sheltering canopy,
understand like a soothing balm,
be kind like a gentle breeze
that carries hope.
For we never know who might be weathering a silent storm.